REMBRANDT

BY THEODORE ROUSSEAU, JR.

Curator of Paintings

Change of fashion is as inevitable in art as it

is in women's clothes-and also quite as desirable. But it has its drawbacks. In the effort
of each new generation to prove its vitality,
fashion brings out the best of what is popular
in a school of painting, but it also gives undue
importance to much that is mediocre. As our
eyes get used to a certain type of painting, they
seem to exclude others; and so some of the
work of great men of the past is forgotten because it does not seem to fit into contemporary
surroundings.
In our own times, we have seen the Impressionists recognized and given the place
which is their due next to the great painters
of the past, but simultaneously we have witnessed an inflation in taste which has brought
out many of their second-rate works. Sold at
absurdly high prices, these are to be seen
everywhere in exhibitions, museums, and private collections. It will not be long before they
join the cast-offs of other fashionable enthusiasms in the cellars and attics. This is only
just and natural. But there is another aspect
of the matter which is much more serious. We
have become accustomed to the bright colors
and simple lines of modern art; and consequently, it has become difficult for us to look
at "dark" paintings. We have also become
used to seeing-or being shocked into seeingstylization, distortion, and abstraction. The
majority of modern paintings impart their
message with a certain immediacy. With few
exceptions they are not intended to hold our
attention for a long time. The painters of the
past whose works repay study, and are increasingly rewarding as they are better known,
seem to many of us unnecessarily complex
and old-fashioned.
These modern habits of looking have even
dulled the appreciation of a painter of the
stature of Rembrandt. Even among his professed admirers, there is a certain amount of

lip service; and all too often he seems-for

some strange reason-to be considered as part
of the taste of the Victorian era. The current
exhibition offers a timely opportunity to look
again at what fashion is inclined to obscure.
No painter is better able to hold his own with
the giants of all ages. None is better qualified
to remind a generation that threatens to become completely dehumanized of the eternal
value and beauty of simple, basic human feelings.
The Museum's collection of paintings by
Rembrandt is the largest outside of Europe.
Although lacking great examples of his landscapes and figure compositions, it contains admirable portraits from every period of his development, and Rembrandt's portraits are the
best key to the understanding of the particular thrill, the peculiar enjoyment that is derived only from him and not from the work
of any other artist. The study of the human
face fascinated him more than anything else
in nature. The great majority of his works are
portraits, and at least one tenth of these-a
statistically minded art historian has counted
them-are self-portraits.
What is the predominant quality of Rembrandt's portraiture? What is the explanation
of the impression his portraits make on us?
Rembrandt's approach to all his subjects is,
it seems to me, warm, tender, simple, and
human. But what he conveys is not material.
It has to do with those aspects of the human
character which are intangible, which are felt
by sympathy and sensitivity rather than seen.
They are implied by expression rather than
made explicit in the shape of a forehead, chin,
or nose. They are most apparent on the faces
of old people, whom Rembrandt so often
chose as models. Perhaps this sensitivity to the
spiritual side of human nature is best expressed in his treatment of the female nude,
for instance, in the great Bathsheba in the

81

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November 1952

Louvre, in which, painting a middle-aged be seen in the grave portraits from Fayyum,
woman's body with complete realism, he some- painted more than fifteen hundred years behow made it glow with such tenderness that it fore Rembrandt was born.
becomes as beautiful as any classic goddess.
Their special quality can be best explained
When the visitor to Holland walks along by comparison with the work of other great
the streets of the Hague or Amsterdam, he portrait painters, Holbein, Frans Hals, or
sees people who remind him of those painted Velazquez. In a head painted by one of these,
by Hals, Vermeer, or Terborch; but he looks the eyes look out of the picture at us. The
in vain for anyone resembling a Rembrandt. message they carry about the personality of
Yet if he studies the heads in Rembrandt's por- the sitter is direct and immediate. In Remtraits more carefully, concentrating on fea- brandt's work the eyes seem rather to watch
tures and structure, he realizes that these also us and think. They not only convey the mood
are of the same race. They are different be- of the model; they also make us aware of his
cause Rembrandt was interested, not in their inner life, of thoughts and feelings we know
external appearance, but in their character. he has but which are beyond our grasp. They
Each head impresses us very directly with draw us into the picture; but the more we
its own personality. The Man with the Mag- look at them, the more difficult it becomes to
nifying Glass is serious and thoughtful. The define the feeling they give us. They gradually
Lady with a Pink is full of tenderness and create a strange atmosphere of suspense, of
sadness. The flower suggests that this is a wed- listening for something quite outside the limding portrait, yet her expression of dreamy its of the canvas.
It has been said that it was only in his more
melancholy, of regret mixed with understandseems
an
mature
more
of
ing,
anniversary.
suggestive
years that Rembrandt looked "behind
Both of these portraits evoke emotions which the mask" of his models. But surely this sense
we feel and understand deep inside ourselves. of inner life expressed through the eyes is
They create an atmosphere of intimacy but, present in his work from the very beginning:
at the same time, of solitude and uneasiness. in the Noble Slav or the Old Woman in an
We feel that we understand the sitter, and yet Armchair, both painted while he was still in
there is something that escapes us and leaves his twenties. How effectively he reveals the
us with a sense of anxiety. This strange enig- strong and sensual character that lies behind
matic quality is in all Rembrandt's portraits, the homely and awkward appearance of the
even early examples like the Old Woman in young Lady with a Fan, also from this early
an Armchair and the two members of the Van period. In his youthful self-portraits one feels
Beresteijn family. Leonardo also gave his por- that he is struggling to find a way of expresstraits a mysterious quality but more deliber- ing these inner qualities of the personality.
ately, as if to provoke us. The Mona Lisa is a The eyes peering from the depths of the
siren. Rembrandt's women make us reflect shadow cast by the hat in the Old Man with
on the infinite richness of human personality a Beard can also be seen in some of the earliin a manner that is comparable to Shake- est of these. How this effect is produced technically-with the brush-it is impossible to say.
speare.
The most important of the means Rem- Many copyists can reproduce a Rembrandt
brandt uses to achieve his characterization is portrait to perfection in every other respect,
the extraordinary power of expression which but I have never seen one who has caught this
he puts into the eyes of his models. As we strange, hypnotic power of the eyes.
Rembrandt's portraits command our attenlook at his portraits we are inevitably drawn
to the eyes. Whether they are looking at us tion also by the simplicity and the unity of
or not they hold our attention with a curious their pictorial organization. He subordinates
kind of fascination unique in painting. Per- everything in the picture to one purpose: the
haps the closest approach to their effect can expression of his feeling about the person. In
82

Painted in 166o. Bequest of Benjamin AltPortrait of the Artist, by Rembrandt (i606-i669).

article
are in the current Rembrandt exhibition.
this
illustrated
in
The
man, 1913.
pictures

his early works he conveyed this with accessories-oriental costumes, weapons, old booksas in the exaggerated, almost comical Saskia as
Bellona. As he grew older, he gradually gave
them up.
His development in this respect can be fol83

lowed by observing his treatment of hands. In

the early portraits they play a secondary but
an important supporting role. They are carried out in as much detail as the face. They
help to tell us about the life of the Old
Woman in an Armchair. The way they con-

trast with the face of the Lady with a Fan is

terribly revealing. Then, gradually, they are
more and more subordinated to the head. In
the Auctioneer they are painted more broadly
than the face. In the Lady with a Pink they
have become shadowy, ghostlike. They are
transparently painted, loosely drawn, so much
so that they are difficult to understand unless
looked at in relation to the face, where all the
meaning of the picture is concentrated.
Rembrandt's use of light and shade is a
vital element in achieving the unity of his
pictures. In general, he uses shadows to subordinate elements that might disturb this
unity; but he does not, like Caravaggio and
his school, simply black them out. He creates
an area of half light in which some parts are
to the eye and others are
understandable
lost in mysterious darkness-for instance, the
strange head in the background of the Auctioneer, which our eyes strain to see but cannot quite make out.
It is in his landscapes that Rembrandt uses
shadow most effectively, and in the paintings
that combine landscape with human action
that it is most expressive. The contrast of the
realism of his human figures with the comtreatment of the backpletely imaginative
elements of the
the
of
one
is
important
ground
that is characatmosphere
strangely suggestive
teristic of his works. The dark and threatening sky in Bathsheba, for instance, seems to
foretell the tragic events which followed this
poetic beginning.
Rembrandt is essentially a painter's painter.
He defined form in terms of color and light
rather than by volume, as Michelangelo, essentially a sculptor painter, did, or in terms of
line, like Botticelli, who was a draughtsman
painter. But, as he painted, he constantly drew
with his brush, and the strokes follow the
basic structure of the form he put on his
canvas. His early brushwork is meticulous and
precise, as in the oval Head of a Young
Woman or the Van Beresteijn portraits. Gradually, he simplified his method. Each stroke
became increasingly significant until at the
end he expressed himself with a supreme
economy of technical means. His late brush-

84

work has at the same time a complete sureness

and an effortless freedom that have never been
surpassed by any painter. Good examples of it
can be seen in the Old Man with a Beard and
the Portrait of Lairesse. His early studies
show that he was working towards this freedom when still a young man. In the Portrait
of Saskia as Bellona, painted when he was
only twenty-seven, the vigorous handling of
the shield is similar to what he was to do
many years later.
In Rembrandt's paintings the surface is always rich and varied, so much so that it has a
sensual appeal of its own. In his youth it is
sometimes rather hard, but it soon takes on
life and excitement. Lights are applied over
the darker tones by thick and powerful strokes
in a logical but infinitely varied method.
Sometimes the paint curls up at the end of
a stroke, keeping the exact imprint of the
hairs of the brush, so that we almost feel as
if Rembrandt's hand had left that spot only a
moment before.
Recent cleaning of a number of the Museum's paintings by removing varnish that was
either discolored by age or tinted to give the
golden glow fashionable in the last century
has revealed Rembrandt's true strength and
daring as a colorist. In his youthful paintings
his palette is dominated by cold colors; even
the flesh tones are cool, as in the two Van
Beresteijn portraits and the Bellona. It is interesting to imagine the changes which cleaning will bring to the Noble Slav, the color
harmony of which is completely changed by
yellow varnish. The turban and scarf will be
a cold, greenish white, and the background
will also be a much cooler grey. The golden
cloak will, of course, keep its present tonality,
and the resulting contrast with the background will make the figure stand out and appear even more imposing than it does today.
Gradually, as Rembrandt grew older, his
colors became predominantly warm until, at
the end, some of his pictures, like the Christ
with a Pilgrim's Staff or the Old Man with a
Beard, are almost monochrome brown. The
range of colors he used was always astonishingly limited but the variety of tone within this

0o

w~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TeTltfBthbatthBtp
t.by
R

The Toilet of Bathshebaafter the Bath, painted by Rembrandtin

I643.

of Benjamin A
BequLest

Lady with a Pink, by Rembrandt.

Bequest

of Benjamin

Altman,

I9I3

drickje Stoffels and the Self-Portrait.

Like every truly great artist, Rembrandt
grew steadily in stature. His drawing and
brushwork became increasingly simple and incisive. In the portraits painted at the end of his

range is infinitely rich. With a minimum of

colors he uses the maximum of technical means
to an extent equaled by few other painters.
Most fascinating are the touches of vivid color
which he puts on as final accents in the Hen86

Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711),

by Rembrandt.

87

Dated 1665. Lent by Robert Lehman

A Young Man with a Black Cap, painted by Rembrandt

life his sympathetic understanding of human
personality became even more profound. Few
painters have reached such a perfect balance
between technique and feeling. At the end of
the seventeenth century, Robert de Piles, the
French painter and diplomat, characterized

in r659. The Jules S. Bache Collection

Rembrandt in a sentence, the simplicity and

clarity of which it would be difficult to improve upon and which I am sure would have
pleased the artist himself: "Rembrandt doit la
connaissance de son art a la bonte de son esprit
et a ses reflexions."
88

Saskia and Rumbartus, drawing by Rembrandt. Lent by The Pierpont Morgan Library
89

Landscape

with Barn

drawing by Rembrand

Bequest of Mrs H

Havem

Landscapewith Barn, drawing by Rembrandt.Pen and bistre. Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Have

Christ Preaching (la petite Tombe), etching by Rembrandt. About

1652.

Bequest of Mrs. H. O. H

Dr. Faustus, etching by Rembrandt. Gift of Felix M. Warburg and His Family,

92

I94I